Levelling up as a Pro Illustrator - Reader Poll?
A list of honest thoughts, that probably belong in a diary rather than on Substack.
Shout out to everyone who has replied my email asking how this newsletter has helped you and what value you get from it, your thoughts are really helping me shape my decisions.
Offloading some initial thoughts
The most impressive thing I’ve ever done was breaking into Children’s Publishing from a third-world country as a children’s illustrator in 18 months.
I put a great deal of intentionality and effort into the endeavour, this included sacrificing activities that unlocked 500 hours in this pursuit.
Writing a newsletter helped me record and articulate the process to myself and others.
The newsletter was about going from zero to one, about breaking in.
To grow the readership I tried a variety of things, to broaden the scope of the newsletter. I made it about Notes, Tastes and more recently about Sketching Daily.
The reason I want to grow the newsletter readership, is because the newsletter provides a healthy income, that really helps between the bigger intermittent chunks from freelance work
Another reason I explored broadening the topic of the newsletter is I got annoyed when it was successful, i.e when subscribers went on to get agents or book deals, they unsubscribed… I realise that I wasn’t providing any value beyond how to break in.
The reason is once you break in you’re just working back to back to back, it’s a good thing, but nothing much to write home about, It’s really boring (I like the boredom) until about your 10th book, then a whole other bunch or realisations set in, so once again i have something valuable to write about.
The sketchbook prompts I’m offering are valuable, but the value is closer to the price of a book of prompts. $17.99 for 365 prompts. For the time I spend writing, and the upside I can bring a certain kind of reader, I’m really looking to charge closer to $50 a month.
This is probably a good time to ask you to subscribe.
Writing is a service. It can be self serving, in the form of a diary, or planner, or it can serve someone specific.
I started writing here because I had been in a classes with hundreds of aspiring illustrators and when I got my first book deal and my agent, they had so many questions, so writing was a way to answer them.
So I started writing for a reason, and I evolved the reason to be, “grow faster”, so I can add a chocolate bar to the groceries once in a while.
I’m thinking again about service, and about who exactly I want to serve.
Sometimes when I’m trying to serve those I seek to serve fight ensue, (like twitter fights, or DM’s), I realize the reason is there are people reading and what I’m writing is just not for them. That’s a good lesson. The lesson for them is “it’s not for them”. And the lesson for me is, that’s not who I’m trying to serve.
I get the most out of writing when I write daily… I get the most out of anything when I do it daily.
I moved
to it’s own substack, that serves a different person, maybe the person wants to make a living making art maybe not, it’s just a fun way to practice and grow art skills. Sure it overlaps, but it’s becoming clearer to me who this newsletter needs to serve.The people I’m trying to serve here are: People transitioning into an into illustration mid-carrer so they can do so as smoothly as possible, for skilled illustrators struggling with the business side of art so they can pick up the skills to make money for their art, for self-taught illustrators seeking to professionalize their practice.
Occasionally there are some of you who are just interested, and I’m happy for you to be here too!
Everyone else should unsubscribe
What I would like to do is just write every day and just make it free. I would also like the people who get value out of it to pay me. These are opposites I know.
So I don’t know how to structure this thing, but when I do I will tell you.
Yeah so the goal is something like writing daily to capture these insights as they come, and then sorting them into something I can put a price tag on.
The Ten Minute Artist Brand still works because, the goal will be to give you things you can do in 10 minutes a day to improve your
Am I changing everything, right now? No I’m writing a public diary entry.
I’ll aim to build up a month’s worth of the new format content before making any big changes.
When we do go to a new format, maybe I’ll archive everything and think of them as drafts for the new thing.
Polls
I’m thinking of offering 3 daily bullets,
one idea from personal experience
one action (prompt) and
one introduction to an industry player
Do any of these ideas appeal to you?
TLDR; I’m going to focus on writing for people who are interested in Levelling up as a Pro Illustrator. This focus will help me create the most value out of the time I spend writing.
This sounds great to me. I think the industry and practice insights were what made me sign up to paid, and I think you were one of the first paid subs I took out (I finally got to a point where I had to unsubscribe from some as a I had built up quite a bit and yours was one that I didn’t for a moment consider unsubscribing from. The poll wouldn’t let me pick more than one, but I am transitioning careers and self-taught. I love the idea of ten minutes a day that will provide concrete progress there, actually.
Hi Adam! It took me awhile to become a paid subscriber because I wasn't really sure if this/your Substack would have value for me...I found that even being a free subscriber you were putting out a lot of information and I initially thought I might be overwhelmed if I got even more content....hahaha!
But the idea of small day to day commitment was the appeal and as you mentioned here prompts can be found anywhere, but by being a member of your Substack I became accountable...so I for one will be dissapointed if you remove them... I think that what finally got me off the Fence was ART GYM, because it somehow tied in to the overall look/feel but now it's seperate....
I love what you do ... and it's probably a good idea for you to refine what content you want to put out... I can't promise I will subscribe for another year after my current year expires, but I do look forward what interesting direction you turn to... it's sure to be interesting!
The sketchbook prompts I’m offering are valuable, but the value is closer to the price of a book of prompts. $17.99 for 365 prompts. For the time I spend writing, and the upside I can bring a certain kind of reader, I’m really looking to charge closer to $50 a month.